All Archive

Depending on how you count the years, the Richmond hostel has been 20, 8 or 4 years in the making. Which made last Saturday’s opening of the state-of-the-art hostel even more special and certainly worth the wait! Score our first guest as a cyclist riding across Virginia, ...Read More

PART TWO OF “SLEEPING WITH STRANGERS” Travel feeds curiosity, and curious people travel. That’s one reason I love hostels: inquisitive people are all around me. It’s easy to feel right at home. It was on an overnight flight earlier this year to an HI hostel in Toledo Spain ...Read More

MY WHY WE HOSTEL BLOG AND YOU As you may know, my blog has gone through a major transformation in the past few months to make it easier to find articles of interest to you. Now with my 100th post last week, here’s an anniversary ...Read More

A SHOUT OUT TO HI USA STAFF AND VOLUNTEERS ON MY 100TH BLOG POST Last weekend I was in Chicago for a quarterly HI USA Board of Directors meeting. We stayed at our Chicago hostel, located in a vibrant downtown student neighborhood just a few blocks ...Read More

The recent spate of media reports about deep pocket investor plans for ” high-end hostels ” in the largest U.S. cities is sparking a wider public interest in hostels there. With each report, more and more Americans are familiar with the idea of quality urban hostels. That’s a very ...Read More

I work for HI USA because I love what our hostels offer: a chance to meet interesting people from around the globe, to learn a bit more about the city I am visiting in a fun, off-beat way, and to get the best value. ...Read More

POST-EARTH DAY REFLECTIONS ON THE 2015 GLOBAL TRAVEL AND TOURISM SUMMIT Millennials are our primary hostel guests, so HI USA naturally seeks to be regular and active listeners to 15-35 year old insights and needs, on issues small and large. Then it’s not surprising ...Read More

Two weeks may seem like a relatively short period of time. But it can have a life changing impact. I have seen it first hand through the IOU Respect cultural exchange program, offered annually by HI USA. The IOU Respect program is delivered through ...Read More

MY 18-HOUR TRAVEL EXPERIMENT As they get smarter, smartphones as an international travel tool continue to generate strong feelings among avid travelers. Purists believe in the sanctity of learning a new city through a physical map and the kindness of strangers. While others see smartphones as an ...Read More

A WORD CLOUD REPORT I am two days back from the annual global HI CEO meeting, this year held in Toledo, Spain. CEOs from more than 40 HI national hostelling associations were in attendance, plus London headquarters staff and two international board members. The venue ...Read More